I have a number of them actually, but one opinion-ish-thing is that…this isn’t like, an attempt to justify Thingol’s behavior towards Beren or Luthien in the early part of the story or anything, or make it seem better, just a question of motives/mindsets, but one of the things that struck me in the Lay vs in the Silm is how in the Lay he’s so…INSISTENTLY CONVINCED that Beren has “enchanted” Luthien and that Luthien is under a spell of “madness” or whatever, and he has to protect her from doing anything stupid and out of character while under its influence, not just restricted to a simple, “your desires and intentions are wrong and I refuse to respect them” or whatever.

And like, this hinges on the answers to a string of previous ambiguities that aren’t clear, like the question comes, exactly how sketch/mind-controlling was Melian’s whole several-decades-long enchanted first date thing, and if the answer is “very” the question comes, did Thingol ever really consciously understand or acknowledge what happened to him and/or understand how sketch it was, and if the answer is “yes” then idk Thingol might have more reason than most to be overly paranoid about the implications or plausibility of this kind of thing happening, especially since he doesn’t really know very much about humans.

Which is not, again, to say that his response was anything close to reasonable or appropriate but it’s just, a different mental process of self-justification than a dismissive “omg wanting to be with a human is so stupid that she must be crazy or smth.” I guess. But again, this opinion is dependent on those other two “ifs” I listed above, and I’m not like, totally firmly invested in those or anything.